


comprehend languages

by losebetter



Series: modern literature [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Ficlet, Intimacy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 04:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17481428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losebetter/pseuds/losebetter
Summary: It turns, slides, clicks into place in Caleb’s head all at once, as he realizes that everything he’d assumed was out of his reach, the ability to coexist with what grinds social crowds and off-script intimacies into heat and nausea in his brain, doesn’t come naturally to Fjord, either.





	comprehend languages

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS SO SHORT, I KNOW, but i didn't really have anything else to do with it!! i still like it a few days after posting it to tumblr, so i'm going ahead and archiving it here. muah.

There’s something about the way Fjord hugs him - full-bodied, thick arms careful with practice. It turns, slides, clicks into place in Caleb’s head all at once, as he realizes that everything he’d assumed was out of his reach, the ability to coexist with what grinds social crowds and off-script intimacies into heat and nausea in his brain, doesn’t come naturally to Fjord, either.

 _He’s clueless_ , howls the child-strategist pacing in his skull, with thudding kicks to his brain stem like a trapped animal trying to gnaw off its limbs.  _He’s broken, he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t know anything_  - so cruel and melodramatic, sluicing over him as though cutting and running from any of them could ever be as easy as washing them off.

Caleb hugs him. He clasps his gnarled fingers together at the beautiful bend of Fjord’s upper back, the only way his slim, fuzzy arms make it all the way around. Fjord snuffles adorably against his shoulder.

 _He is clueless_ , he thinks patiently toward the temper tantrum that aches in his head like he’d bruised it somehow. He wishes, for the seventy-thousandth time, that knowing the logical, evolutionary basis for hind-brain anxiety could disappear it in a plume of smoke. Not smoke. Water, through his fingers, enough to pool unbiased over the burned hills and valleys of his bare hands.  _He is as clueless as we are_.

His body rails against weakness and hates that instinctively - it trembles in Fjord’s arms, which adjust to hold him more firmly, scuff him oh-so gently to buss the shivers out. Caleb feels raw, skin burned to chafing and pink underneath.

 _In over his head_ , his brain tells him, something Fjord told him with his own mouth some weeks ago, when Caleb had been distracted by the peek of handsome teeth and cold, arresting fear for his life. Fjord is in over his head. But  _clueless_  and  _kind_  don’t feel like hard synonyms with Rexxentrum so far away - being here, feeling Fjord’s steady heart in his chest, it feels more and more like one begets the other. Is everyone kind a little clueless? Is it a requirement?

Caleb thinks of calculated risks. He thinks of how nonplussed he’d felt as he’d been reminded by his peers that people drop their guard when they care about something, that it makes them vulnerable. Kindness is a liability is an opening.  _Clueless_. They all were. Maybe Fjord’s the only one with the right of it, spilling his earnest heart all over the place. Pretty big matzoh ball. Outside of Caleb’s warzone brain, Fjord has started up a happy purr that warms Caleb to his toes without the permission of his head.

It’s a kindly rumble and a kinder silence. Compassion backlit with intelligence, like the light in Fjord’s eyes when Caleb does something he’s never seen before.  _That’s impressive, Caleb_ , as though it costs nothing to say, as though Fjord’s existence is not unfairly characterized by a cost he carries on his back every day. Caleb recognizes burn scars, but the unblemished green skin stretched across muscle like a natural armor against bruises speaks depths in a language he can’t hope to translate. Divination. Soot, salt.  _While touching the surface where words are written, understand any written language you see._ Caleb slips the soot of his hand up under Fjord’s shirt to press flat to the salt of his back, and studies his breath.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find a rebloggable version of this [here](http://losebetter.tumblr.com/post/182052776266/comprehend-languages-widofjord-600-words-im) \- feel free to message me either on tumblr or on [twitter](http://twitter.com/losebetter) if you want to say hey!


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